Note 56 — CHAP. IX.

I infer that such is not the practice in China, from the manner in which the Dutch Embassadors were conveyed to and from the capital in the middle of winter. The inconveniences they suffered on this occasion are such as can scarcely be conceived to have happened in a civilized country. The perusal of the manuscript journal I have elsewhere noticed conveyed to my mind the idea of a country dreary and desolate, and of a people indigent and distressed; without humanity, and without hospitality. They travelled in little bamboo chairs, carried by four men, who were generally so weak and tottering that they could not go through the day's journey, but were obliged, frequently, in the middle of the night, to halt in an open uninhabited part of the country, where not a hovel of any description was to be met with to shelter them from the inclemency of the weather. And it most commonly happened, that the lodgings appointed for their reception, at the different stages were in such a miserable condition, admitting on every side the wind, rain, or snow, that they generally preferred taking a little rest in their bamboo chairs. They were surprized to find so few cities, towns, or villages in their route, and not less surprized at the ruinous condition in which these few appeared to be. Near the capital a whole city exhibited only a mass of ruins. In many places they found the country under water, and the mud hovels completely melted down. Sometimes they passed extensive wastes, where not a trace was visible of any kind of cultivation, nor a single dwelling occurred in the distance of eight or ten English miles. And it was not before they had crossed the Yellow River that they perceived the marks of wheel-carriages imprinted on the roads, which were so little travelled upon that they could with difficulty be traced. Here they met old men and young women travelling in wheelbarrows; and litters carried by asses, one being fixed between the poles before, and one behind. The rivers had no bridges over them; and such as were too deep to be forded, they were under the necessity of crossing on rafts of bamboo. In short, before they arrived at the capital, the fatigue and hardships they had undergone considerably impaired their health, and the condition of their clothing was such as to excite the compassion of the mandarines, who made them a present of twenty sheep-skin jackets, dressed with the wool upon them; which, like the Hottentots, they wore inwards. One of these gentlemen assured me, that having satisfied his curiosity, no earthly consideration should tempt him to undertake a second journey by land to the capital; for that he believed the whole world could not furnish a like picture of desolation and misery. What a contrast is here exhibited to the ease and convenience with which our journey was made! But the whole treatment of the Dutch embassy seems to have been proportioned to the degree of importance which the Chinese attached to the political condition of this nation.